Adult New Fiction Harrington
In this beautiful coming-of-age novel, we learn that Matt Bliss is “somebody who knows how to be happy.” He has a loving wife and two young daughters, left his engineering career to become a carpenter, and grows the best vegetables in town. He is worshiped by his eldest, Alice, who accompanies him on roofing jobs and working in the garden.
Matt is also in the National Guard and his unit has been called up for deployment to Iraq. Angie, his wife, has a desperately hard time without him there and her already-uncomfortable relationship with Alice just grows more distant. Angie pretty much abdicates care of the family to Alice. Alice is having a hard time focusing on anything besides her father’s absence. She wears an unwashed shirt of his for weeks.
This family does not exist in a vacuum, though. They have the loving support of just about everyone around them. Angie’s brother Eddie takes over Matt’s role in the family as best he can, teaching Alice to drive and taking Angie out for dinner and dancing. Henry, Alice’s best friend since birth, tries to be there in any way he can for Alice. Ellie, Alice’s precocious young sister, offers Alice the opportunity to be needed and focus on something outside herself and her misery. And Gram holds the whole clan together.
The best of small-town America is reflected in this novel. In uncertain times, these people struggle and support one another. Hearts break and everything changes, but ultimately life does go on.
This is a magnificent debut novel. I can’t wait to see more from Laura Harrington.
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